Network Virtualization using Overlays over Layer 3 (NVO3) is a technology that is used to address networking and addressing issues that arise in building large, multi-tenant data centers that make extensive use of server virtualization.
In the NVO3 architecture, a Network Virtualization Authority (NVA) node is a network entity that provides reachability and forwarding information to Network Virtualization Edge (NVE) nodes. An NVA can also be considered as a controller. A tenant system can be attached to an NVE node, either locally or remotely. The NVE may be capable of providing L2 and/or L3 services, where an L2 NVE can provide Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN)-like services and an L3 NVE can provide Internet Protocol (IP)/virtual routing and forwarding (VRF)-like services.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example NVO3 architecture with four NVEs 102/104/106/108, each attached to at least one tenant system or network, in communication with a common NVA 110 in the overlay network 100.
In the example network of FIG. 1, NVE 102 is connected to tenant systems 112 and 114. NVE 104 is connected to tenant systems 116 and 118. NVE 106 is connected to tenant system 120 via network 122. NVE 108 is attached to tenant system 124.
An NVE is the network virtualization function that sits at the edge of an underlay network and implements L2 and/or L3 tenant separation and for hiding tenant addressing information (e.g. MAC addresses and IP addresses), tenant-related control plane activity and service contexts from the underlay nodes. NVE components may be used to provide different types of virtualized network services. NVO3 architecture allows IP encapsulation or Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) encapsulation. The network-facing side of the NVE can use the underlying L3 network to tunnel frames to and from other NVEs. The tenant-facing side of the NVE can send and receives Ethernet frames to and from individual Tenant Systems. An NVE could be implemented as part of a virtual switch within a hypervisor, a physical switch or router, a Network Service Appliance, or be split across multiple devices.
Multicast traffic should be handled by the NVO3 architecture without overloading the underlying network connections of the overlay network. However, if a tenant system contains many applications attaching to a large number of NVEs, using multicast traffic replication methods may generate large amount of duplicated traffic on the same underlay network connection.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method that obviate or mitigate the above described problems.